And it’s a hard lesson to learn, my friend
A hard lesson to learn
Sometimes you gonna get what you want
Times you gonna get burned.
Excerpt from “Hard Lesson to Learn” by Rod Stewart.
I imagine I was about ten or eleven when I got a summer job picking blackberries. I cannot remember where it was or how I got there each morning. I vaguely remember it was somewhere in the Glenbeg direction, and I probably cycled. What I do remember is the weight of the buckets and the stain on my hands.
I knuckled down to work. I had never seen so many blackberries at that age. I remember that twice each day I would bring my blackberries to be weighed, at lunchtime and evening. After a few days, I learned the importance of guarding my pickings so that others would not slip a few handfuls into their own buckets. Of course, it was one thing to realise that blackberries were disappearing, but another matter to figure out the thief. My detective skills were being developed alongside the work. About a week into the job, it was clear that Mikey was on the take, but I did not dare to call him out. I tormented myself for days, outlining my planned accusation, but it got no further. Mikey knew I was on to him. Robbery from my buckets reduced, and he became very friendly towards me. Was this a plan on his part, or was his friendship genuine? A further week in, it became clear he was planning a complete hijack of me and my berries, and my naivety shocked me.
“Hey Pat, what would you think about us combining our buckets and splitting the money fifty-fifty?” asked Mikey.
I cannot believe that I said yes. You see, I was convinced that the plan would stop him from robbing mine and would also mean that he would make sure that no one else would steal our buckets. However, I realised he was simply a poor or lazy worker.
In the first week, I earned seventeen shillings. When our plan to combine our buckets kicked in, my wages dropped to thirteen shillings, despite my perception that I picked more than the week before because I did not have the distraction of minding the berries. The game was up! I had been taken for a fool, but only once. The following Monday morning, I told him my mother said I would only pick for myself. She had said no such thing. I needed an adult to hide behind. After that, Mikey stayed away from me, and I enjoyed the job better.
Years later, as adults, Mikey and I got on well, although we did not see very much of one another, as I had gone to Dublin. In recent years, we would meet around town now and then and have great reminiscences of growing up. Neither of us mentioned the blackberries.
For What It’s Worth
Many years later, as a primary school teacher, one of the Irish lessons every September was about picking blackberries. Ag piocadh sméara dubha. I had inside knowledge about the dark side of the job. It was my job to be objective, so I said nothing of Mikey — except for one year, when I turned blackberries into a maths lesson. How much would you earn, I asked, if you picked two hundred berries a day, Monday to Friday, at 50p a container, and how much profit would the supermarket make selling those same containers at £1.50 each? Inside, I chuckled. I did not tell ten-year-olds that containers go missing. Some lessons are better kept.
A child needs to believe the field is fair. It was not, and I found that out in shillings. When trust is broken, it leaves a mark. Some of my faith in the goodness of others was taken away near Glenbeg. I was taken for a fool, but only once.
As adults we can see a bigger picture. Mikey was a boy on the take, and later a man I could stand with in town. I can see the behaviour of others as coming from where they are on life’s journey. I am not my behaviour. Neither was he.
We never mentioned the blackberries. That was not forgetting. That was deciding the man in front of me was not the boy with his hand in the bucket.
“We are made kind by being kind.” (Eric Hoffer.)
Over to You
• What do the words of the verse mean for you?
• What memories come up for you?
• What insights do you have about yourself or others?
• Think back to your first job. Recall as much as you can. What life lessons did you learn?
• Did this job and any life lessons stand you well for later life?
• Is there a small injustice you never named, and was silence the better ending?
